


The Message

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-20
Updated: 2011-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're not sure when you started to notice the same injuries on him over and over again. But you're starting to think it isn't a coincidence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Message

**Author's Note:**

> Am I just flipwise turning all my old fics? This one reminds me a lot of Take You Home. I HOPE THAT IS OKAY

It begins so subtly you're not sure when it did.

When did you start to get the feeling that you'd seen the same kind of injury on him over and over again? You really have no idea, but one day when you shove him into a wall and line your body against his, he winces and his eyes come out of focus. When you get his shirt off, he's got that same set of bruises again, and you frown. "Jesus, Sleuth," you growl, "are you just laying down and taking this or what?"

His expression (a moment ago, one of dazed enjoyment) turns grim. "No. Shut up. Come here." And you do, and you ignore the fuzzy half-moon bruises on his stomach and ribs, same as a few weeks ago and a few weeks before that, but fresh and black-violet now. It's not hard. It's not like he doesn't do the same to you, with your haphazard collection of old wounds like chalk lines tracing your body. And that's not to mention the new ones, puckered stitch lines and a year back, your first bullet wound in ages. So it's not like this is uncommon, exactly. You're just used to them being more... random.

Later, though, with enough time past that you'd mostly forgotten about the trend in the Promethean struggle of managing this goddamn city from the bottom up, you walk out of the lounge at 2:30 in the morning after a great set and he's not there to meet you. People flood out past you and you stand under the sign of the place across the street and scan them, but he's not there. He's tall enough, and one of the only folks who gets away with pale clothes in a city named after the darkest part of night, and besides that, the two of you meet here practically once a week, so you'd know if you saw him.

Once the crowd thins, you can start to hear the sounds from the alleyway, and, curious about who had the balls to start up something on the Crew's doorstep, you take a stroll while you wait for him. Three guys, decently large. One has a baseball bat, and prods the fourth guy with it. He's on the ground between them, and one is laying into his ribs with a solid kick when you come around the corner. His clothes are rough with dirt and dishevelled, but they used to be pale. You almost step on his hat.

"What the fuck," you say flatly, and three pairs of eyes meet yours.

"Shit, it's him," says one, and they start backing up, muttering among themselves. You speed up the process by pulling a hefty knife, practically a machete, off the sheath strapped beneath your jacket, and advancing. You'll take 'em apart limb by limb, until you're left with a pile of arms and legs and nothing to do with them. You'll have a face full of blood splashes and ears full of screams, and Droog'll complain about having to fit three bodies' worth into plastic bags and that aside from living passengers, the Midnight Cruiser was not made to haul more than one body at a time.

You'll do all that, you reflect as they run off, once you're sure he's alright. Mostly sure. Right now you're about 25 percent. 100 would be great; you're aiming for 75. You throw the knife, more as an afterthought than anything, and one screams gratifyingly as it buries itself into his calf. With the pleasant thought that now, you can look for the guy with the limp, you kneel beside Problem Sleuth.

Until you went to turn him over and noticed your hands shaking, you almost didn't realize how furious you were. Your hand closes on his shoulder and you pull him over. He is breathing, you can tell instantly, short sharp sobs of breath that you've never heard out of him. The closest you can think of are the gasps and panting he lets out with just you, but the juxtaposition there is staggering and you feel, for a moment, just a moment really, like you are going to puke.

He has got an impressive pair of black eyes building, his face is scraped from the concrete, and his nose is bleeding. You pull his shirt open and his undershirt up, and Jesus fuck, the bloody bruises all across his torso are going to make you kill something yet.

His eyes are closed, and he takes you by the wrist without looking and pulls his shirt back down, hiding the wounds. It almost makes you angrier. "Does this happen here a lot?" you demand.

He takes a minute to catch his breath, and his voice is low and shaky even then. "No," he says. "Not here. Just give me a minute to get up."

"What, fuck, no," you tell him, and scream for Boxcars to get out here. You're not far from the back door, and by now the Crew is perfectly tuned to your melodious howling. "You're going to the fucking hospital. I bet you've got broken ribs. What the fuck, Sleuth," you growl, and grab his pistol from his side holster, shaking it at him. "What do you even have this for if you're not gonna use it to protect yourself against assholes who jump you in the alleyway?"

"Shut up," he says, mouth clamping shut between sentences. "And give that back."

Eventually, Boxcars carries him in, and you don't take him to the hospital, but you do spend a couple hours helping him clean himself up. You're a terrible nurse. But you like to think you're an excellent... whatever you two are. The best.

You keep him at the club that night (naturally, you've got a couple beds in the back), and you drift off to sleep staring at his wallet sitting on the table in the semi-darkness and feeling like something about that is wrong. You fall asleep before anything connects, though.

In time, even that dims down too, though you keep a passive watch out for Gimpy and his two buddies. Even if they never mugged him, the three of them should know better than to start shit on the Crew's territory.

Then you wake up in the middle of the night to the crashing fall of glass smashing. He's wrapped around you in his creaky bed with the evil springs, nuzzled into your shoulder, and the two of you both shock awake. You spring for your hitcher, leaning against the bedside table, and he rolls out of bed for his pistol. You're glad that, in your startled-out-of-sleep phase, that you didn't move for the door; the window is smashed in and glass litters your side of the room.

You mutter a litany of curses before you realize Sleuth isn't even mad. He's picked up a large rock, with a piece of paper wrapped around it. It's torn up from its passage through Sleuth's window, but it's still in one piece. You clamber over the glass-free bed and read the writing on it.

FUCK THE GANGSTER, FUCK THE CITY, it says. Problem Sleuth turns it over. The other side reads EVIL BASTARD. His mouth settles in a line, and he puts the rock on his nightstand.

"Okay, let's go," you say. "He won't have gotten far."

"No," he says, "just go back to bed, Slick."

"The fuck I'm going back to sleep now," you argue. "Some fucker throws a rock through your window and you just stand back and say "This is democracy, he's free to do that"? Fucking stand up for yourself."

"Why bother?" he asks. His voice is low and heavy, and it takes you a minute to recognize it. It makes you think of his bloody bruised stomach and him lying in the alleyway alone.

"We could make him stop," you say.

"Or we could make more people do it," he counters. "It's rocks now. If I start harassing people with this opinion, it'll be on fire next. I don't need that."

"I don't need you getting beat up whenever you're out of sight." Your voice is rising now, and he's looking pale and grim. You realize, halfway into it and halfway through a sentence, that aside from the physical, this is the first fight you've had. Why'd it have to be about something so stupid? This seems a pretty black-and-white issue to you. You grab him by the shoulders and stare uncomprehendingly at him. "Sleuth, look. Come on. Basic fucking common sense: if somebody tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back. That's like... natural. Come on."

He shakes you off. "You don't understand. Ignoring it is safer."

"Safer? Safer like it's you in the hospital with internal bleeding and not one of those douches?" He hesitates, and you leap on it. In arguments, as in combat, you like to seize things by the throat. "That is what you mean, you fucking noble asshole. Don't you fucking martyr yourself over a couple random goons."

"That isn't what they are," he argues, and now you're actually seeing him mad for once. You actually pissed off Problem Sleuth to the point where his mouth is twisted. You can see it in his eyes. He is fucking furious and trying not to let you see it, but it's escaping anyhow. You are intimately familiar with the signs of wanting to crack somebody's teeth down their throat. You know.

"It isn't," he says again, when you look sceptical. "These aren't bad people and they're not vigilantes either. These are folks who think..." He trails off, his words warping suddenly into silence like he's said too much. He probably did.

"Who think what?" you demand. "Think they can go around assaulting whoever they like? They didn't even fucking mug you. This isn't crime. They'd get something out of that. This is just..."

"Justice," he says, and your brain actually takes a moment to catch up with that one. "Or, that's what they think," he adds, quietly. Your mouth takes a moment to move, and he takes the opportunity to finally fill you in. "They think I've sold out to the Midnight Crew because we're... you know. Maybe they just want to steer me back to being morally upright, or maybe they figure I already warrant the punishment. They're not bad people. They're just... " He doesn't finish the sentence.

You probably gape for a minute like a goldfish out of the bowl. "They're just fucking wrong, is all they are. They're just heading the right way on I'm Going To Pull Their Stomach Up Through Their Throats Avenue. They're just going to die for this shit, is what they are."

"They're not wrong," says Problem Sleuth, and seems to suddenly lose his energy. He sits down heavily on the bed and puts his head in his hands.

"The fuck they aren't," you say. "If they think you're one of my goons they're sorely mistaken. Hell I wish I could boss you around. Make things easier. But when have you ever listened to a word I say?"

He shakes his head. "I _have_ fallen, Slick, don't you see it? Time was I'd still be trying to put you down. You're a criminal. You hurt people... a lot of people. I should be fighting that. But because we're... together, I just stay out of Crew business. Who's gotten hurt that I should have saved, since we started... this?"

"Should have?" you say darkly.

"Could have," he amends, and he looks so miserable all of a sudden that you find yourself on the bed too, pulling his head down to rest on your lap. He looks up at you, all mussed pale hair and unhappy green eyes, and you run your hand through his hair a few times. It sticks up in terrifying points and you smirk faintly, and he pulls you down to kiss him before you laugh.

It's more melancholy than your usual type. You feel that familiar swell to your heart you've felt a handful of times around him, that feeling that, even if you despise the rest of the world, here's one thing that's just yours and nobody else is allowed to touch. You want to keep him here, in his horrible bed that breaks your back to sleep in, wrapped in shabby quilts, and you want to head into the night to ruthlessly exterminate any threat to him.

"Can't save 'em all," you tell him. "And me and the Crew aren't the worst. We keep this place going. 'S better for it that you let us be."

"Yeah," he says, looking up at you. "Yeah. I guess I know that."

He falls asleep soon, and you pull a switch-change to put his head on a pillow instead of your lap. You leave the glass for now; you'll deal with it later, or Sleuth'll clean it up. It is his apartment, after all. You get your clothes on, your jacket and shoes and hat, and you strap on your knives and gun. As an afterthought, you return to Sleuth's room for the rock. You slip out and close the door almost-silently behind you. The instant before the latch catches, though, you stop abruptly, brain kicking into gear.

Every instinct you possess is telling you to go through with it. To find Gimpy and his band and to track down whoever just chucked this rock. You could do it. You made this city. You know all the connections. Then you'd feel better, doing something about this whole fucked-up situation, and you'd deal with the fallout later when Sleuth inevitably pried his way into finding out. But there'd be no more bloody bruises and no more rocks through his window. And you'd feel better.

But something about what he told you is sticking in your brain. This is about you, after all, and there's some faint uncomfortable fear that's beginning to well up inside your stomach. You could do it. You could take these vigilante assholes out and call it a night well-spent. But, and you've never thought anything like it before, what if he's right?

What if you take them out and all that happens is you prove their point? When Sleuth gets hurt, you come to his rescue. It's sending a message, and the message isn't "Don't throw rocks through people's windows" but "Crew deals with Crew property". Then, if it wasn't just Gimpy and a handful of others, they'd know they were right. You've heard that for every person who acts one way, there's a dozen who've thought about it. How many people really think Sleuth is on the take, how many think he's more harm than good? And how many would think it if you started offing the guys who hurt him?

Shit. You hate thinking. Fights are so straightforward. Goddamn politics. You really have no fucking clue how to deal with this one. But you're starting to think that solving it for him isn't actually going to solve anything.

A frustrated growl rips its way out of your throat, and you hurl the rock into a nearby alley. It hits once and keeps flying, and in the light from the streetlight, you can see the paper tear loose.

You guess you've got to sit this one out. And you hate it. But you will. You slip back into the house, get out of your things, and slide into bed. You don't sleep, but you stay beside him, and you stuff an extra shirt into the hole in the window to keep out the draft.


End file.
